More budget for girls’ education demanded

PESHAWAR: The civil society organisations have demanded the government to increase allocations for the girls education in the upcoming budget.

Talking to the media, Qamar Naseem, Blue Veins Programme Coordinator, urged the government to speed up the progress towards girls education. He deplored Pakistan spends only 3.02 per cent of its GDP on education but the international standard is above 4 per cent.

The rights activist said the government should raise education spending to provide enough schools and teachers to enroll 22.8 million out of school children. He said the government should also providebetter quality education to the children already enrolled in schools.

Qamar Naseem said the government needs to ensure the equitable approach to resource allocation towards girls education. Imran Takkar, a child rights activist, said the present ruling party government had in July 2018 stated in its manifesto that nearly 22.5 million children were out of schools.

Complaining that girls were particularly affected, he said 32 percent of primary school age girls were out of schools in Pakistan, compared to 21 percent of boys. The child rights activist said only 13 percent of girls were in school by the ninth grade.

He pointed out that both boys and girls were missing out on education in unacceptable numbers, but girls were the worst affected. Taimoor Kamal, another rights activist, said despite recent educational achievements and efforts to engage girls and young women in education, there remain significant challenges such as cultural norms, early marriage and childbearing, security concerns, and long distances to school which do not recognise the value of the girls education.